Stable Isotope Composition in Surface Water in the Upper Yellow River in Northwest China

Abstract

Although stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen in surface waters (especially in river waters) are useful tools to understand regional hydrological processes, relevant information at some upper reaches of large rivers in western China is still limited. During 2016–2017, we focused on the Liujiaxia Reservoir along the upper Yellow River, where we collected surface water samples at two locations, above and below the dam (identified as “lake water” and “river water”). The results show that the heavy isotopes in lake and river waters are enriched during the warm months, when the river discharge is large, and depleted during the cold months. The slopes of the water line (δ2H versus δ18O) for both the lake and river waters were lower than that of the global mean, due to evaporation. The different d values of the lake and river water reflect the regional evaporation and water sources.

Evapotranspiration Trends and Interactions in Light of the Anthropogenic Footprint and the Climate Crisis: A Review

“…Isotope technics are useful tools to detect hydrological processes and useful alternatives to upscaling methods in the partitioning of evaporation and transpiration in arid and semi-arid areas [25]. Recent implementations over the arid Upper Yellow River and Qilian Mountains in China showed that the stable isotopes 18 O and 2 H can reflect the characteristics of water sources and evaporation [26,27]. Given that the light-isotope evaporation rate is high compared to heavy-isotope evaporation, evaporation in lakes and surface water bodies can be easily detected since the condensed water is enriched in heavy isotopes whereas precipitation water is depleted (of heavy isotopes) [21].…”

Alternative methods to determine the δ2H-δ18O relationship: An application to different water types

“…Obtaining reliable parameters for LMWLs as well as regression lines for isotopic data of other water types is particularly important for research studies focusing on groundwater recharge (e.g., Gonzalez-Trinidad et al, 2017;Oiro et al, 2018), evaluating the effect of evaporation processes on surface waters (e.g., Florea et al, 2017;Sharma et al, 2017;Shi et al, 2019) or investigating source waters based on evaporation lines (e.g., Evaristo et al, 2015;Javaux et al, 2016;Benettin et al, 2018). For example, the visual inspection of the overlap between groundwater isotopic data and LMWL allows to better understand groundwater recharge processes (Boschetti et al, 2019).…”

Stable isotopic variations (δD and δ18O) in a mountainous river with rapidly changing altitude: Insight into the hydrological processes and rainout in the basin

“…This lower slope (7.43) (Figure 8) of river waters from lower reaches in comparison to the entire basin (8.42) and that from the upper reaches (9.03) also indicates about the evaporation of stream water during transit (Shi et al, 2019). The observed increase in d values with increasing elevation can be linked to differential evaporation amount, which is highest in the plain region in comparison to the same in the mountainous terrain.…”